Terrain dimensions along the X and Y axes (i.e. how many grid cells there are along the X and Y axes). For example, if both parameters are set to 256, the terrain will have 16×16 grid cells.

Grid cell
step

The step of a grid cell, in units. It determines how many times the terrain grid cell will be bigger than the default one (equal to one unit). At the picture below, both terrain have the same 256x256 dimensions, the step of the first terrain is equal to 1 unit, of the second to 2.

Notice

The parameter does not affect the storage size of the terrain, it just enlarges the terrain grid cell, so the amount of triangles remains the same.

LOD
Distance

The distance to the first LOD that starts the distant-dependent tessellation.

Notice

The terrain dimensions and grid step cannot be changed afterwards.

Choose the path to the existing .terrain file to overwrite it, or choose the path to the new terrain.

Place the terrain somewhere in the world.

See also a Landscape Plugin article to know more about creation of large terrains.

Terrain Parameters

Terrain Size

The size of the terrain is calculated as (power of two + 1) × (power of two + 1), which is equal to the total count of terrain vertices.

The maximum size of a terrain is 32769 × 32769

The minimum size of a terrain is 257 × 257

Notice

The maximum size of a terrain available in Editor is 16385 × 16385, as it is almost impossible to create terrain textures of such sizes for modern graphics editors. You can still create a terrain of the size of 32769 × 32769 using the create() function.

A terrain dimension along the axis is determined by the (Cells count - 1) * Grid cell step formula.

X size, Y size, Grid cell step and Max height parameters determine the maximum slope angle, i.e. the number of vertices at a given relative altitude. The bigger the grid sizes, the smaller the step and the height, the steeper the terrain slope can be. However, sometimes it is more rational to create very steep cliffs with a separate mesh rather than to set very high density of a terrain grid.

Terrain File Format

data

src_project

materials

meshes

buildings

vegetation

vehicles

nodes

buildings

vegetation

vehicles

textures

buildings

vegetation

vehicles

Terrain data is stored in the following formats:

.ter file stores the meta information about a terrain object, such as bounding box of terrain, bounding boxes of surfaces and whether they are enabled or disabled. It also stores vertices of a coarse level.

.terxxxx files store information about heights in terrain surfaces (up to 8×8 maximum), as well as information about holes.

Terrain textures data is stored in the following formats:

_d.dds - coarse albedo map

_n.dds - coarse normal map

_m.dds - coarse mask texture

00x00_x.dds - per-surface albedo, normal and mask textures. They are stored in a separate folder that is named after the terrain file.

Notice

It is recommended not to archive terrain files, as accessing them in real-time will result in slowing down both rendering (textures and height maps streaming lags) and physics calculations.

Terrain Physics Simulation

The terrain takes part in physics simulation if it has a standard surface_base property assigned. Collisions with physical bodies use the most detailed LOD 0 and are handled within a set distance, where simulation of physics is in effect.

Terrain Textures

All of the textures have the following requirements:

Size

(power of two + 1) × (power of two + 1) pixels

Minimum - 128 pixels.

Maximum - 8192 pixels.

Import Formats

Targa (.tga)

JPEG (.jpg)

Portable Network Graphics (.png)

Direct Draw Surface (.dds)

Photoshop Document (.psd)

Portable Pixmap (.ppm)

Portable Graymap (.pgm)

High Dynamic Range (.hdr)

Silicon Graphics Image (.sgi)

RGB (.rgb)

RGBA (.rgba)

Export Formats

Targa (.tga)

JPEG (.jpg)

Portable Network Graphics (.png)

Direct Draw Surface (.dds)

Photoshop Document (.psd)

Notice

For height, holes, albedo, normal and mask textures only.

Terrain Textures Arrays

When you add a new layer and load textures for layer, the engine automatically generates arrays of albedo, normal and height textures. Arrays consist of textures of all layers.

The size of arrays can be changed manually in the Layers tab.

Textures Compression

After loading of all the textures and finishing their editing in Terrain Editor, it is strongly recommended to compress them for more efficient usage of the memory. The Compress option compresses refined albedo, normal, and mask textures, as well as their coarse textures. Layer textures are not compressed.

Nodes Editor, Parameters tab.

The following conversion is done:

R8 to ATI1

RG8 to ATI2

RGB8 to DXT1

RGBA8 to DXT5

On the contrary, the Decompress option decompresses all compressed textures mentioned above.

Notice

It makes sense to compress all the textures once before the final build is released, because each compression/decompression results in a quality loss.

Textures Export

You can export any of your basic textures via the Export tab. Just press Export near the required texture. In the opened dialog window choose the extension and a path to the texture.

For a height map, you need to specify a Max Height parameter, which is equal to the terrain maximum height.

Nodes Editor, Export tab.

Terrain Optimizations

A level of details (LOD) system automatically adapts the density of a terrain grid detailing according to the distance. There are two types of visibility levels that depend on the distance:

A coarse level is the furthermost from the camera and the least detailed. On this level coarse albedo, normal and mask textures are rendered. They are always stored in the memory and allow renderer to effectively render extremely large terrains.

A refined level is closer to the camera and more detailed. When a terrain is created, its grid is automatically divided into smaller refined chunks of 257×257 vertices in size (shown in the Refined tab). Each surface has a unique set of textures, which, in fact, are parts cut out from the imported textures. Parameters of each surface can be modified either together or separately.

LODs Tessellation

Terrain LOD system has smoothly adapting tessellation required to avoid seams and cracks in transition regions. Each vertex near the outer perimeter of a smaller LOD is seamlessly stitched to the neighboring polygons of a bigger LOD with additional triangles. The same technique is used to smoothly fuse heights and holes into the terrain.

Terrain vertices are stitched together

Geomorphing

Another problem of switching between two tessellation levels is popping of vertices. For example, when polygons that form pyramid-like bump are abruptly switched to one flat polygon, it gives a very unpleasant popping effect. Geomorphing technique introduces an effective way out: before actually switching to the next LOD, it smoothly moves vertices down to their position, morphing the bump into flat surface. As a result, there are no artifacts visible; even in case of a very sparse grid and too small LOD distance only slightly moving vertices can be noticed.

Hummock from close-by

The same hummock from further away

Refined Textures

When a terrain is created, its grid is automatically divided into smaller refined chunks of 257×257 vertices in size (shown in the Refined tab). Each surface has a unique set of textures, which, in fact, are parts cut out from the imported textures.

1st LOD

A 1st LOD parameter specifies a distance from the camera to the first LOD that starts a distant-dependent tessellation.

Small LODs distance

Bigger LODs distance

Notice

Do not set very small LOD distances. Otherwise, all the LODs will follow each other too closely and geomorphing will be more obvious. Besides, there can appear cracks between terrain vertices, when a patch level of detail is changed to a surface one.

Visibility Distance

A Visibility distance sets the range passing which the terrain is no longer rendered. Not the entire terrain disappears at once, but rather starting from the furthest surfaces. If it is set to infinity (inf), there is no distant-dependent optimization for the terrain.

Shadow Distance

A Shadow distance parameter limits the distance up to which mountains, hills and other terrain relief features cast shadows (Refined -> Cast shadow and Cast world shadows should be enabled for this option to be in effect). If it is set to infinity (inf), shadows will be casted across the whole visible terrain.

Shadow distance = infinity

Shadow distance = 20 units

Notice

Even if the casting of world shadows is disabled, terrain is still shaded (it is clearly visible on the far mountains peaks on the picture below). Disabling shadows helps to reduce the rendering load even further.

Off-camera shadow extension

An Off-camera shadow extension is the distance up to which additional terrain polygons outside the viewing frustum are rendered. This option allows eliminating popping of shadows.

When the camera is looking down at the mountain foot, the peaks are outside the viewing frustum and do not cast shadow, though it should be visible. With Off-camera shadow extension parameter, the geometry outside the camera view (in every direction across the chosen distance) is rendered and thus the shadows from mountain tops are in place.

The shadow radius to set depends on the height of terrain relief features and the angle of the sun (which determines how long the shadows from it would be).

Set the minimum possible value, as this parameter increases rendering load (check RTriangles counter in the performance profiler).

Notice

To avoid issues with shadows from mountains tops, also make sure that Rendering settings -> Shadow distance is set high enough!

Radius = 0

Radius = 100 units

Flatness Threshold

Adaptive tessellation allows you to optimize rendering of plain and flat terrain areas. Instead of subdividing them with a fixed number of steps that the current LOD requires, tessellation adapts to the relief curvature and the viewpoint. The closer to the camera the curvature is and the more prominent it is, the more it gets subdivided. The flatness threshold tests the difference in heights between the polygons in the previous and next coming LOD. It is measured not in units, but in heights gradations.

The minimum value of 0 means the tessellation is uniform and non-optimized.

The higher the value, the greater the height difference between the polygons is, and it is possible to render polygons as one large patch.